Below, in no particular order, are several anecdotes, ideas and facts that I originally wrote for that story, which were cut from the final text in the interest of clarity and concision.

I’d like to invite readers to use the comments section below to discuss the PM story, or any other related topics. As always, I enthusiastically welcome constructive criticism and dissenting opinions, but let’s all agree to avoid unfounded accusations of conspiracy (I swear, I’m not being paid by Monsanto, pharmaceutical companies, or “Big Fluoride”) or general nastiness, ok? Vigorous debate is awesome, name-calling and personal attacks, not so much. Thanks.

Births, babies and vaccines

Despite priding ourselves on being a health-conscious city, Portland leads the nation in elective home births. This seems to be a growing trend locally, despite the fact that numerousstudies show the risk of infant death is much higher for home births compared to being in a hospital. But then again, maybe hospitals aren’t the safest places to have a baby? [EDIT: I was asked to provide more support for the claim that the risk of infant death is higher in home births, and I should have done so. This research article is the best citation I can find on the subject. It’s a fairly recent (2010) meta-analysis that summarizes the results of 7 studies on the subject, which were selected for good methodology. The overall finding of these 7 studies is that home births more than double infant mortality, from .09% to .20%. In the combined study groups, 16,500 infants were delivered by home birth, and approximately 16 more infant deaths occurred than would have been expected if they had been delivered in hospitals.]

My friend Dave and his wife had a child at OHSU hospital in 2013. About 18 hours after their daughter was born, a social worker from Multnomah County came to their room to record the birth. This person was wearing a surgical mask and Dave, concerned for his brand new child, asked if they were sick. “No, I don’t believe in vaccines, so I have to wear this mask.” What? Why would OHSU hire someone who doesn’t “believe” in vaccines to speak to new parents? How many parents go home with both a new baby and new doubts about vaccines?

I spoke to representatives from OHSU about this incident, and they would not comment on specific employees, but they confirmed that, yes, they do permit unvaccinated employees to work in rooms with medically fragile patients and newborns, as long as they wear a facemask. They also said that, hypothetically, OHSU would support a policy that requires employees to be vaccinated, but (as mentioned in the PM article) state law currently precludes common sense policies like that.

I was also told, by State Representative Mitch Greenlick (also a professor of public health) that a lot of the opposition to mandatory vaccine policies (on a state level) comes from nurses unions (?!?) because they believe that such a policy would be used as a pretext to punish nurses and that doctors would not be held to the same standard. I have trouble, however, believing that many doctors would choose not to be vaccinated (yes, I’m aware of “Dr.” Jack Wolfson, but to be fair, he’s an osteopath, not an MD, and in my opinion, osteopath’s are barely ‘real’ doctors—the entire osteopathic tradition, much like acupuncture, is founded on unverified anatomical beliefs that simply don’t correspond to actual human physiology—and many osteopaths practice a lot of nonsensical treatments, like using massage to treat pneumonia and other infectious diseases.) Even if this was true, however, it’s a cynical position and it’s really poor policy (and fairly ironic) for nurses unions to prioritize workplace politics over public health.

Vaccines and school employees

Like hospital workers, school employees in Portland also are not required to be vaccinated. I spoke to representatives from Portland Public Schools about this and they also said that they would like to have such a policy, but cannot because of State law. I asked them what they did to ensure that school employees (not just teachers, but custodial staff, kitchen workers, coaches, bus drivers…) did not put students at risk of preventable diseases. I was told that they have a policy to affirmatively protect student health by removing sick employees from classrooms and directing them to a doctor if necessary. They could not recall, however, the last time this policy was used but were sure it had been “at least several years”.

A little bit more about fluoride

photo credit: OregonLive (this guy works at the food co-op in my neighborhood)

In addition to conspiracy theories, the opposition to fluoride in Portland was based on many bad arguments, such as an oft-repeated desire to “keep chemicals out of our drinking water” despite the fact that water itself is a chemical, and nobody seems to mind that we already add chlorine, ammonia and sodium hydroxide to our water in order to disinfect it and prevent corrosion of pipes. (Side note: the irony award goes to an anti-fluoride protestor who was seen standing on MLK avenue, holding a sign that said “Fluoride is Poison”, while smoking a cigarette…cognitive dissonance much?)

Another common claim of fluoride opponents, such as Clean Water Portland, the main opposition group, was that fluoride would “add a substantial amount of arsenic to the city’s tap water”. While technically this claim was true, it was also entirely misleading and was clearly a disingenuous attempt to scare people—which is a pretty sleazy tactic typically employed by cynical, dishonest actors, not people with truth on their side.

Estimates from Clean Water Portland’s own research claimed that fluoridation would “potentially” increase arsenic levels in drinking water by as much as 0.12 parts per billion. That might sound dangerous, but the natural arsenic level in our water is already ten times that high, and many common foods such as rice, apple juice, fish and tea contain hundreds or thousands of times as much arsenic. Eating a single tuna sandwich would give you more arsenic than drinking 9,000 glasses of fluoridated water, even at the alarmist levels CWP claimed.

More examples of bad public policies in Portland

photo credit: Portlandia

Failing to consider scientific information leads directly to bad public policies. For example, the local environmental movement recently celebrated a “major victory” in banning plastic bags in Portland, despite the fact that doing so didn’t meaningfully improve the environment. Yes, paper bags are made of a renewable resource and biodegrade faster, but compared to plastic bags their manufacture requires about four times as much energy and creates far more pollution and greenhouse gases.

I don’t really have any strong objection to “banning the bag” (it’s pretty much a wash from an environmental perspective) but it’s really a shame that the local environmental community (which I consider myself part of) spent several years and a lot of money on this issue. The opportunity cost was staggering—instead of making progress on important environmental problems like carbon dioxide emissions or pollution in our rivers, most of the community was consumed with passing feel-good legislation that failed to make any real impact on our environment.

Similarly, last year the Portland Water Bureau, wasted 38 million gallons of drinking water because some idiot urinated in a reservoir. Of course that’s gross, but it only resulted in the water being roughly 0.00000197% urine (which is mostly water anyway) and it poses no actual danger to people who drink the water. Bizarrely, at the same time, we accept the known risk of waterfowl swimming and defecating in the same reservoirs, which is a well-known health risk.

All scientists get paid for their research

This isn’t specifically relevant to Portland, but it’s a point that I think bears mentioning here: all scientists work for money, whether it’s a salary from a company, or a grant from the federal government. Consequently, we all face pressure to produce results that conform to the prejudices of our funding sources. For example, if a biologist studies a species of butterfly and gets her funding from the Nature Conservancy, she might face a problem if her work shows that the butterfly species is doing well—because, of course, the NC depends on public donations to fund their work, and it’s hard to raise money if you are telling people that everything is fine.

This isn’t a fatal problem though, because the hallmark of good science is reproducibility, not a single published study. If other scientists can reproduce findings, using the same methodology, then they are good results and will be accepted by the community—it really doesn’t matter if the original study was funded by Monsanto, the NSF or Greenpeace (who have an annual budget of about $400,000,000.00 and really should fund more research and less propaganda). Nonetheless, in public debates about things like vaccines and GMOs, I constantly hear research dismissed as “industry funded” as if that somehow changes the validity of the results.

(Side note to folks who make this criticism: who should fund research into the safety of vaccines and GMOs? Should taxpayers have to subsidize the work of for-profit companies and spend public money to prove that these products are safe? Or should the for-profit companies bear the financial burden?)

I don’t want to whitewash concerns about dishonest results though—it’s certainly true that a lot of medicines have been approved for public use based on flawed results, and that many negative findings are simply not reported to the FDA. This problem should be addressed with legislation that requires public reporting of all studies, as well as publicly funded comparison studies that compare the efficacy of new, expensive drugs to older, cheaper ones.

[This is an op-ed that was published in my local neighborhood newspaper. I’m republishing it here, mostly for preservation, but also because I think it’s an interesting topic that folks who don’t live in my neighborhood might enjoy thinking about. As always, I welcome any feedback in the comment section. Thanks]

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As a resident, home-owner and former business owner in Concordia, I have long enjoyed reading the Concordia News. It’s a great source for community information and I appreciate reading the opinions of my neighbors. Recently, however, I’ve been disappointed to see my community newspaper evolve into an extremely negative and reactionary publication that seems dedicated to preventing urban development. It feels like the “voice of our community” has turned into a grumpy old man, grumbling about “change” and yelling at kids to keep off his lawn. This disappoints me because those views simply don’t represent my opinion, or those of many members of our community. I’ve taken the time to talk with my neighbors, and I know that there are many of us who enthusiastically embrace urban development.

I realize that our neighborhood is changing rapidly and that such change can be disconcerting to long-time residents. However, we all chose to live in a city and cities are, by design, places that constantly evolve to accommodate the needs and ideas of new residents. Infill development and “skinny houses” are simply another part of the evolution of our urban neighborhood. And, in my opinion, infill development should be embraced by our community because it provides more family-friendly housing and creates a more environmentally efficient community. Increasing housing density in our community also means more foot traffic for our business community and a bigger tax base to fund neighborhood improvement. Perhaps most importantly, encouraging housing density also reduces the need for urban sprawl, and means that we can preserve more of the farmland and forested wilderness that makes Oregon unique.

Frankly, a lot of the whining I hear about skinny houses and infill development strikes me as hypocritical. We all live in houses that were once built on empty land and I’m sure the construction of each one “changed the character” of the neighborhood and annoyed some people who preferred things the way they used to be. There is no pure, ideal Concordia of the past that we are losing or should aspire to return to. The history of our neighborhood has been one of near constant change and this evolution is exactly what defines our community—what once was a working class, immigrant neighborhood with horse-drawn trollies running down Alberta Street is now an amazing art and small business community with long lines for breakfast. I’m sure a decade from now it will be different still.

For those of us who don’t like change, Oregon is full of hundreds of quaint, bucolic towns with strict zoning laws and no skinny houses. Many of these towns are virtually unchanged from they way they looked generations ago, and generations from now they will probably be just about the same. Life in a small town is a great option for those of us who prefer a slowly changing community and believe the single-family-home-with-a-yard is the ideal model for living. Portland on the other hand is a dynamic, living city and our neighborhood is on the forefront of that evolution. Many of us love it that way—we enjoy being part of a vibrant urban community and we are excited about the changes going on to our neighborhood. I hope that the Concordia News will make an effort to represent our opinions as well.

Actually, Jesus isn’t the reason for the season: why this agnostic celebrates Christmas

It’s mid December as I write this, and if you came to my house today you would find it transformed for Christmas. We have a lovely Noble fir in our living room, hung with shiny ornaments and hundreds of colorful lights, and our house is decorated with evergreen garlands, candles, stockings and statues of Santa. Last weekend my wife and I hosted a holiday party for our friends and relatives with music, gifts, dancing, cocktails, rich food and fancy cookies. It was a blast.

I am proud to admit that I’m a Christmas geek—not sure why, but I just love it. I don’t really decorate or get that excited about any other holiday, but I go all out for Christmas. Which may seem weird, because I’m not a Christian. I’m an avowed agnostic, and as such, I don’t have any particular metaphysical or spiritual reasons for celebrating Christmas. This annoys folks I know, both religious and non-religious, for different reasons. Some non-religious friends of mine don’t like that I’m celebrating and encouraging a religious holiday; they would rather see society abandon old-fashioned superstitious customs. On the other hand, to some religious folks, my secular celebration violates the sanctity of the holiday and I am part of the “War on Christmas”.

This article will attempt to explain why I think they are both wrong, and why I will continue to joyfully celebrate Christmas. At base, my entire position can be reduced to this: Christmas isn’t really a Christian holiday at all, it’s simply the Christian name for the traditional midwinter/solstice celebrations that are common across many cultures and predate Christianity. The rest of this article will be devoted to justifying that position.

Before I jump in though, one quick disclaimer: I’m going to discuss a lot of convoluted, complex historical information, but I’m not a historian. Pretty much every sentence below could fill many books, but I’m going to try to stick to a couple thousand words. By necessity, I’m treating this subject glibly, but also as accurately as I can. If I make any errors, or you have any questions, please let me know in the comments or by email. I’ll do my best to provide more detail or make corrections as needed.

Why Christmas really isn’t a Christian holiday

Christianity emerged in the Roman world, and early Christian practice (early in the sense of 3rd-4th century, when Christianity spread across the Roman empire) seems to be strongly influenced by Roman religions and customs. Romans celebrated two distinct festivals that seem to have inspired many of our modern Christmas traditions. The first was the most important annual festival in Rome, Saturnalia, or the feast of Saturn. This multi-day festival was held during the run-up to the winter solstice in late December and featured partying, food, drinking, gift giving and relaxed social mores (slaves ate at the masters table, etc).

In the late Roman period, the emperor Aurelian created a new festival, Dies Natalas Sol Invictus, or “the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun” (sound familiar?) which was celebrated on December 25th. Aurelian created this new holiday in 274 AD, only 38 years before Constantine wrote the Edict of Milan, which essentially legalized Christianity. After legalization, Christians were free to publicly celebrate their holidays. For this reason, the oldest records of Christians celebrating Christmas date to around this period, and unsurprisingly these accounts of “Christmas” strongly resemble the Roman festivals that dominated society at the time. Contemporary scholars actively debate whether the December 25 date was chosen for Christmas to coincide with Dies Natalas Sol Invictus, or for calendar reasons related to the supposed date of the Annunciation, but that’s not really relevant to my position. Christians clearly borrowed many of their “Christmas traditions” from the Roman holidays, and that’s what interests me.

As Christianity spread through Europe, it encountered Germanic tribes with their own religious customs. This Germanic culture was utterly different than the Romans, but they also celebrated a solstice festival, called Yule or Yuletide, which, according to Scandinavian legend, was “a time of greatest mirth and joy among men”. This festival also occurred at the winter solstice and included feasting, drinking, fires and candles, and animal sacrifice. Many contemporary Christmas traditions trace directly to Germanic pagan customs, including bringing fir trees into houses and lighting them, kissing under mistletoe, hanging wreathes on doors, and of course the Yule-Log.

(Side note: these same Germanic pagans also seem to be the source material for the other major Christian holiday, Easter, which is named after their goddess Eostre. Like Christmas, modern Easter traditions have essentially no basis in the bible, but seem to be rooted in pagan celebrations of the Spring Equinox.)

Based on that history, I think it’s really difficult to argue that the Christmas holiday that we celebrate has much to do with Christianity. If you recall the Christmas party I described above, pretty much everything I mentioned (trees, gifts, lights, food, drinking, dancing, candles, sweets…) comes directly from Roman and Germanic pagan winter solstice traditions. This is true of pretty much all the customs we associate with Christmas. The only explicitly Christian elements of our Christmas traditions are the name, nativity scenes and a few lyrics in popular carols.

What about Santa?

Although most Christians would assert that Jesus is the central figure in the Christmas narrative, for me as a kid, that role was reserved for Santa. Santa Claus is a weird dude and slightly creepy if you think about it: he has an army of elf minions, he breaks into our houses, he’s always at the mall trying to get kids to sit on his lap and tell him their secrets…but where did this mythological figure come from?

There’s nothing about Santa in the bible. The closest connection you can maybe make is to the “wise men”, or Magi, who are mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew bringing gifts to Jesus (by the way, the bible says nothing about them being kings or how many there were). But the bible doesn’t mention a fat man with a beard, in a red and white suit, flying through the sky with reindeer bringing everybody presents. Where did those parts of the legend come from?

The Christian explanation for Santa is pretty straightforward: Santa is just another name for jolly old St. Nick! And they are at least partly correct. The name Santa Claus is derived from Saint Nicholas, an early Christian Bishop of Myra. He clearly inspired some aspects of the Santa legend, but also not really.

We actually know very little about St. Nicholas, he was Greek, he grew up in a wealthy and very religious Christian household in the 3rd century, and he became the bishop of Myra, which today is in Turkey. He attended the First Council of Nicaea called by Constantine, which codified early Christian beliefs, and history records that he was a conservative who argued fiercely against what he considered to be heretical beliefs. Coincidentally, all this occurred during the same period when Christians were first able to publicly celebrate their holidays, as mentioned above.

We don’t really have good evidence for any other details of St. Nick’s life: we don’t know if he was fat and bearded with a belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly, we don’t know if he liked children, and we don’t know if he actually dressed like a chilly White Stripes fan.

The legends about St. Nick don’t really take off until about 750 years after he died. As was the custom at the time, men from Italy traveled to Myra in 1087, dug up Nicholas’ grave and took most of his bones back to Bari, Italy. A couple decades later, more Italians showed up and got the rest of bones and took them back to Venice. That’s the legend anyway, but amazingly, analysis confirms that the bones in the two cities are from the same skeleton—so the story is at least partly true. Nicholas is also a really big deal in Russian Orthodox Christianity, and many churches there also claim to possess bits and pieces of his skeleton and teeth.

Throughout the middle ages, a cult developed around Nicholas (he didn’t officially become a saint until the 19th century, or maybe never, sources differ on this point) and he became an important figure in medieval Christianity. And once again, as Christianity spread northward through Europe, it encountered Germanic pagans and appropriated their stories. Much of the popular Santa legend seems directly inspired by the Norse god Odin (or Wodin), who was celebrated during the Yule festival: Odin was bearded, wore fur-lined robes and a pointy hat (although his costume is usually blue and white, which are the colors Santa traditionally wears in Russia), and during the Yule festival Odin flew through the sky in a sleigh pulled by his 8-legged horse, Slepnir, bringing presents to children.

Odin, or Santa?

Remarkably, our popular version of Santa also seems to be influenced by legends from far-northern Siberian cultures. These stories tell of trickster shamans who would climb down chimneys with gifts of hallucinogenic, red and white Amanita mushrooms to help starving, freezing people mentally withstand the arctic winters. Apparently these shamans dressed in red and white to imitate the Amanitas and they found the mushrooms by following reindeer who sought them out for food—in particular, some historians suggest that the shamans may have searched for reindeer with red noses, from eating Amanitas.

Amanita muscaria mushrooms.

Some scholars also suggest that the Amanita mushroom is the inspiration for placing brightly decorated presents at the base of a fir tree—Amanitas are ectomycorrhizal mushrooms, which means they grow symbiotically with tree roots and are generally found growing near fir trees. They have been widely sought throughout history for their psychoactive properties, and it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that people would have been excited to find a bright, shiny, red and white ‘present’ at the base of a fir tree.

Conclusions

Based on this history, I think it’s exceedingly hard to argue that Christmas is a Christian holiday or really has much to do with the birth of Jesus at all. Nearly all aspects of our modern Christmas traditions are directly traceable to pre-Christian winter solstice celebrations. These festivals seem to be fairly universal and many elements (gifts, feasting and drinking, lighting houses, etc.) seem to be shared among disparate cultures, both pre and post-Christianity.

I think there are pretty straightforward reasons for this; knowing the winter solstice was critical to pre-modern agrarian cultures, because it provided important information about planting schedules and rationing food over the winter. In cold climates without modern heat and light, winter was a dark, desperate time. It makes sense that the darkest time of the year (the winter solstice) would be marked by bringing things into our homes that remind us of summer: lights, fires and green, living plants.

The solstice is also the ‘beginning of spring’ in the sense that all the days that come after are longer, lighter and, eventually, warmer. So it also makes sense to mark the solstice with celebrations and feasting for the ending of the winter and the beginning of a new year of plenty. These are the traditions that I celebrate on Christmas, and in my opinion they belong to all of humanity regardless of religious affiliation. Christians put their own spin on the holiday, and gave us the modern name for it, and that’s all great. But it’s not really a Christian holiday and it never was.

So, Merry Christmas to all and a happy New Year!

Postscript

I want to mention one other thing that fascinates me, but doesn’t really fit into the rest of this article. There is an interesting line of research suggesting that the entire story of Jesus is really just a legend to help people mark the winter solstice. Many pre-christian cultures told stories about the “death and rebirth of the sun/son” that occurs at the solstice, and the broad-stroke details of the life of Jesus seem to be allegorical and are mirrored in the stories of many other “solar messiahs” from cultures across the ancient world.

The video below brings together many of the lines of evidence that suggest the Jesus story really just recapitulates ancient legends that personified natural events. I can’t vouch for every fact in this video, and I’m fairly sure it leaves out important details in the interest of telling a better story. Nonetheless, I think it’s really interesting and I wanted to share it.

Up to this point, I’ve held off on writing about Ferguson, Michael Brown, Eric Garner or use of force by police. I’ve done so because, honestly, the whole issue kind of overwhelms me and I haven’t really felt like I had a particularly valuable or informed perspective to contribute. I decided to write today, though, because I keep reading things like Michael Brown was a thug and “got what he deserved” and Eric Garner would be alive today if he hadn’t resisted the cops.

When I hear people express thoughts like this I feel really guilty and also really lucky, because according to these sentiments, I too deserved to be killed by police. I’m not proud of it, but according to these definitions, I was also a teenage thug. I engaged in a lot of the exact same behaviors as Michael Brown—of course, things turned out quite differently for me, for reasons that you can probably guess: I am white, I come from a very privileged background and to a certain extent, I guess, I was just lucky.

To be clear, I was never a hardened criminal, or a gang-member (neither were Michael Brown or Eric Garner), but I certainly committed some crimes: I vandalized property, stole beer from people’s garages and 7-11 (very much like Michael Brown did with cigarillos), shoplifted, stuck punk rock band stickers on cop cars, yelled “F#%K the Police” when cops drove by and generally did my best to be uncooperative with authorities. Again, I’m not proud and in fact I’m pretty embarrassed by most of that stuff. But, I also think it is pretty typical teenager behavior; I did all this stuff with a bunch of friends, all from my “nice” neighborhood and as far as I know we all turned out pretty well. We grew out of our thug years and became lawyers, teachers, construction contractors, business owners and scientists—productive members of society (well, maybe not the lawyers).

I think many of us have similar stories of being irresponsible delinquents at some point in our lives, and the data back me up. According to a recent study, about 70% of Americans have committed a crime that would warrant jail time. But most of us don’t get caught for this stuff and we are able to move on from the stupid moments in our lives. Unfortunately, Michael Brown didn’t get that chance.

I’m not going to dig into the nuances of the encounter between Michael Brown and Officer Hanson or assign blame, because honestly I don’t think any of us know what really happened that day—I’m not even sure Officer Hanson knows; human memory is pretty unreliable. I’m also not trying to excuse the actions of Michael Brown or Eric Garner—they were breaking the law and deserved to be punished for it. However, what they deserved was probably a fine or community service, not death.

I’m also not interested in criticizing or blaming all police for incidents like this, because I happen to know, respect and love several really good police officers. I know cops have an extremely hard job, and most of them are good people who want to help their communities. I also know that there is something deeply wrong in our society that leads us to treat kids like me (white, well spoken, and from “good” communities) as mischievous youth, while declaring that other kids, who don’t share those attributes, are thugs who deserve death for doing pretty much exactly the same thing.

Sunday in Minnesota, outside their game against the Vikings, the Washington Redskins were confronted with the largest protest yet against their team name and mascot. So it seems like an opportune time to explore this controversial topic—Is the Washington Redskins football team name racist, and should it be changed? These thoughts were also prompted by recent news that the team, and its foolish boy-owner, Daniel Snyder, is now suing individual Native Americans for complaining about the name (and for legally challenging related trademarks). I’ll talk a bit about the stupidity of their lawsuit below, but the bulk of this post will be my own personal thoughts on the team name and how history should inform the current debate.

I grew up in the DC suburbs and as a kid I was a Redskins fan—it was the glory days of Super Bowls, Joe Gibbs, the Hogs and Darrell Green (who I once talked to in a Sam Goody!), and before Dan Snyder destroyed almost everything good about the team. When the mascot issue was raised in the 80’s I was a little kid and I was defensive about it—I thought Indians were cool and I didn’t understand how people could be upset about a team name that (to me at least) suggested Indians were tough, aggressive and strong. In the intervening decades I’ve thought a lot more about this question and my opinion has evolved, for reasons I’ll discuss below.

I want to offer one disclaimer before I jump in: I realize this is a complex issue that is emotionally difficult for many people. I apologize in advance if anything I write seems insensitive or offensive. I want to treat this issue thoughtfully and respectfully, but frankly I think any strong opinions on this issue are bound to upset some people. I’m going to try to stick to ‘facts’ as much as possible, but because we are discussing history, there is always a certain layer of subjectivity—we simply can’t know all the facts about events that occurred decades and centuries ago.

As always, I welcome discussion and corrections in the comments, but please be constructive and polite to all.

1. What’s the real historical use of the word ‘Redskin’? If you read the message boards under any article about the Redskins you can find plenty of back and forth about the historical usage of the word “redskin” and about its use for a team mascot in particular. The ‘facts’ are disputed and like any good history controversy, you can find ‘experts’ with impressive credentials who totally disagree with each other.

The strongest negative claim is that the word ‘redskin’ specifically originated as a reference to the scalps of dead Native Americans, which were collected for bounties offered by the US and state governments. As Amanda Blackhorse, who is one of the lead petitioners in the trademark case, and is being sued by the team, said this summer:

“The name itself actually dates back [to] the time when the Native American population was being exterminated, and bounty hunters were hired to kill Native American people… So, in order to show that they made their kill, they had to bring back a scalp or their skin.”

There definitely were bounties placed on Native Americans in 19th century America. However, there is very, very little historical evidence that the term ‘redskin’ originates from this practice or was ever widely used in that context. The claim primarily seems to stem from a single article in Esquire magazine by Baxter Holmes, who cites his family’s oral tradition as evidence. His story has been challenged, and in response, Esquire provided this newspaper notice from 1863, which reads “The State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory.” This is a chilling quote and it illustrates the brutality of our nation’s treatment of Native Americans. There is no defense for this history, however, it’s an odd bit of evidence for Esquire to offer because it simply does not establish the fact that was under dispute—that the term ‘redskin’ referred to a scalp. It says nothing about scalps and the way it’s written suggests that the word is referring to the entire body or the soul of a Native American, not a collected scalp (you don’t send scalps to Purgatory). I’ve not seen any other evidence for the claim that the term redskin specifically referred to Native American scalps.

On the other hand, defenders of the name cite published reports of prominent Native Americans from the early 19th century using the term to refer to themselves and their tribes. For example, both an Osage chief and a Sioux chief used the term in an official meeting with President Madison in 1812. Clearly this usage indicates that, at the time, the term was at least neutral and referred to Native American people, not to their scalps.

Ultimately, the most reasonable interpretation seems to be that the word ‘redskin’ was simply used to refer to Native American people in general, both for good and ill. This word was used in formal situations by Native Americans themselves and by well-intentioned whites working for Native American rights. And this word was also used by racist, imperialist xenophobes, who were actively committing genocide against Native Americans.

2. Why does a football team use the name?

The history of the Washington football team’s use of the name and mascot ‘redskins’ is convoluted and somewhat lost to history, but the short version is this: the team started in Boston in the early 1930’s and originally chose the name Braves because they played on the same field as the Boston Braves baseball team (since relocated to Atlanta). They then moved over to Fenway Park and renamed themselves “Redskins” as an homage to the resident Red Sox. In 1937 they decamped for Washington DC but kept the Redskins name. Based on this history, it seems pretty clear that the name was less of a deliberate decision and more of an accident of marketing—the owners were just trying to attract the preexisting fan bases of the much more popular baseball teams.

Based on the general tradition of sports mascots—usually something tough, fierce and hopefully local—I would guess that using Native American mascots (Redskins, Braves, Indians…) was inspired by the ‘noble savage’ myths and a desire to appropriate the positive aspects of Native American stereotypes—I simply can’t fathom why a sports team would deliberately name themselves after something they disparage, or a literal symbol of failure (in the case of the ‘scalp’ claim). Other sports teams that are named after groups of people (Vikings, Fighting Irish, Celtics, Texans, Fighting Illini…) also seem to be chosen for reasons of pride, or because these groups have tough reputations.

That said, however, all of these non-Native American ethnic team names reference groups of people that are directly associated with the fan bases—i.e. Minnesota, home of the NFL’s Vikings, is also home to many folks of Scandinavian ancestry. Native American mascots are much more commonly used than any other ethnic group, and in most cases, such as with the Washington Redskins, they don’t seem to have any substantive connection to the culture or ethnicity of the fans. Native Americans also have a substantially different history in America than the Irish, Vikings or Texans. For these reasons, I would argue that the use of Native American mascots is both more troubling and ought to be held to a different standard than these other ethnic team names.

3. How does the name sound today? Despite just spending 800 words on it, I actually think that too much is made of the historical meaning of the word—whether Redskins was a positive or negative term 80 years ago is fairly irrelevant to today’s conversation. Our language and our values evolve and well-intentioned ideas of the last century often seem misguided today. It’s much more important, in my opinion, to understand how the name sounds to modern ears and how it impacts our contemporary society. Today the name Redskins is undeniably troublesome, at best it sounds uncomfortable and to many people it is simply racist and offensive. We, as a society, are simply not comfortable referring to groups of people by their skin color, and I think that’s a good thing.

Regardless of historical usage, if changing the name would make people (specifically Native American people) happier today, then we should consider it. I’m not sure that’s the case, however. To be clear, there are certainly many Native Americans who are truly upset about the name and who would like it changed. Native Americans are not all of that opinion, however, and to many the name serves as a source of pride and as an acknowledgement of Native Americans existence in American culture. Changing the name might please some Native Americans, but it could anger or offend others who would prefer to keep the name. It is difficult to determine the majority opinion of Native Americans on this topic, because there just isn’t much data.

The only scientific poll on this question was conducted by the Annenberg Foundation, in 2004. They didn’t ask about changing the name, only whether the name was racist. 91% of self-identified Native Americans said ‘no’ and only 9% thought it was racist. Many folks dispute this poll’s methodology, particularly the fact that the respondents were ‘self identified’ Native Americans. It is argued that there are a lot of mostly-white folks who claim Native American ancestry (presumably because it’s cool) and that including these folks in the poll means that you aren’t really polling Native Americans. This is an important criticism, but the methodology used by Annenberg (an otherwise very reputable polling organization whose results are often cited by good news sources) is pretty much how all polls are conducted, and is usually very reliable. Every time you see a poll result in the media that says something like “X% of group Y supports Z” the results are based on this same self-identification methodology. It usually works pretty well.

Either way though, this is the only scientific poll of this question among Native Americans that I’m aware of, and I don’t know of any other existing data that shows most Native Americans are upset about the team’s name.

4. This is another self-imposed failure for the football team.Dan Snyder is an idiot and he has handled this issue (and pretty much everything about owning the team) in a horrible, short-sighted way. He is a megalomaniac and does silly things like buying media outlets that criticize him, parading Native American WWII vets around in Redskins gear, and now suing people who are challenging the Redskins’ trademarks.

Regardless of your feelings about the name, there is a rich irony in his complaint, which essentially boils down to “Hey, you can’t publicly accuse me of disparaging people because that disparages me.” The other irony in this situation is that if Snyder was a good owner with fan support and a decent team there would probably be a lot less traction for complaints about the name. However, Snyder has squandered so much good will that virtually nobody wants to publicly be associated with him or defend the team.

5. This is also another failure for Native Americans. I get pretty frustrated by PC debates about language like this because, in my opinion, they don’t really help and they often distract time, attention and resources away from more important problems. There are real, and huge, social problems facing Native Americans today: compared to the rest of American society they are far more likely to live in poverty, to drop out of high school, to be alcoholics, to be the victims of abuse and to die of preventable conditions. These are major social problems and many of them are the direct result of hundreds of years of brutal, systematic oppression by the US government. Compared to these issues, the name of a football team is pretty insignificant. If activists succeed in forcing a name change, it will only be a symbolic victory and it won’t directly improve the lives of any Native Americans. For this reason, it seems to me that, if your goal is to help Native Americans, any time spent protesting at Redskins games is time wasted.

On the other hand, names and words are important and changing them can have social value. Symbolism matters and the process of controlling a conversation (i.e. telling mainstream America which words to use) can be a way for historically oppressed groups to claim power and assert themselves. This is a good thing.

6. My opinion doesn’t really matter. I’d be a chicken if I didn’t come down one way or the other on this issue, so I will give you my personal opinion: I don’t really think this should be a ‘democratic’ issue and I think we should take the opinions of Native Americans a lot more seriously than the opinions of folks like me—but, if changing the name would positively impact the Native American community, then I’m all for it. Let them be the Washington Warriors or the Washington Pigskins (so they can still be ‘the skins’ and fans can dress like Hogettes, thus preserving traditions). It would be fine and in a few years almost nobody would care (as long as they come up with a better name than “Wizards”, that name is weak. #bulletsforever).

I’m not sure, however, for reasons outlined in #3 above, that changing the name would positively impact the Native American community. It seems clear that changing the name would make some Native Americans happy, but there is good reason to wonder if it wouldn’t anger more than it pleased. So my real opinion is that we should make a better effort to scientifically measure the opinions of Native Americans on this issue so that we can have an informed conversation about what the actual predicable consequences of a name change would be. Also, Dan Snyder is an idiot.

With this article I’m launching an occasional series about the social sciences and their place in a democratic society. This is a huge topic, and I’m not going to try to cover it all at once. In this first post I’m only going to introduce the topic and mention some really big picture thoughts. I’ll have more specifics soon.

To be fair, I should acknowledge up front that I am skeptical/critical about a lot of social science, for reasons that will be discussed throughout this series. I am also not a trained social scientist, so I make no claims to expert knowledge. I do, however, have some experience that I think gives me a relatively informed perspective. I will do my best, but I am sure I’ll get things wrong. I enthusiastically welcome any corrections or alternative perspectives in the comments.

The title of this series, “The idea of a social science” is taken directly from Peter Winch’s 1958 book, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. I don’t agree with all of his arguments, but this book definitely started me thinking about these questions, and it’s a good read.

Why write about social science?

Social sciences are fundamental to our society; we make public policy decisions based on data about people that is gathered, analyzed and interpreted by social scientists and the work they produce is a major part of how we understand our society. Our biggest political debates, about issues like welfare, immigration, marriage equality and foreign policy, are all based on theories and assertions about how humans behave in different circumstances—i.e. “raising the minimum wage increases unemployment”, “student assessments improve education” or “gay marriage is good/bad for children”. These are all verifiable statements, and social scientists (sociologists, anthropologists, economists, psychologists, political scientists…) should be qualified to either confirm or refute them.

This is how things work in natural sciences anyway. For example, there was a time when biologists argued about what “genes” were made of. It was clear that some chemical in cells must be carrying heritable information that served as a blueprint for growth and development, but nobody knew what that chemical was. Most biologists assumed genes were made of protein because of the chemical complexity of protein molecules. We all know now, however, that the much simpler DNA molecule is what genes are made of. When the chemical nature of genes was resolved, it happened quickly and biologists who had been “protein supporters” accepted the DNA result and moved on to other things. This is how sciences are supposed to develop—over time more evidence is collected, bad ideas are rejected, more of the truth is discovered and big questions get answered.

Big questions about human behavior, however, don’t seem to resolve. For example, for many decades economists have been arguing about whether government benefit programs (welfare, food stamps…) affect employment rates, by de-incentivizing work. This debate shows no signs of ending and almost nobody ever admits they are wrong.

Every day on CNN and FOX, and even in testimony before Congress, you can see economists with PhD’s using objective, ‘sciency’ language to make contradictory predictions about the effects of public policies. Because of their training, these folks are considered experts and because of the ‘sciency’ language they use, their opinions are treated as facts. The statements these experts make, however, are not facts, they are opinions and theories that often have very little empirical support—because it’s simply not possible to use the scientific method to test most economic theories (this is the topic of the next post in this series). Consequently, I believe that the work of economists should not properly be called ‘science’ and that doing so has negative effects—it both muddies our public debates and damages the overall reputation of science.

This misuse of the language and reputation of science undermines public trust in science. When irresponsible scientists, or people calling themselves scientists, get public predictions wrong, people start to doubt the whole field. This problem isn’t unique to the social sciences, however—for example, while I personally accept the overwhelming consensus that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon and ought to concern us, it’s also clear that specific predictions of disaster have been oversold. As a kid, I honestly thought that, by now, most animal species would be extinct and we would be living in a hot, flooded, toxic waste dump. Of course none of this happened—the most dire predictions have not occurred and nature appears to be somewhat more resilient than we thought.

The unfortunate result of these “cry wolf” predictions is that many, many people believe that climate scientists are just alarmists who are making stuff up. This assumption feeds directly into Limbaugh-esque narratives about how the whole field is just a cover for anti-capitalist, un-American, economic reforms. Thus, actual progress on climate change is now politically more difficult and the problem is worse.

Misusing the language of science also distorts debate by invalidating other good opinions. Obviously, some folks are experts about certain issues, and their ideas on these subjects should be considered to be more credible, or at least more informed. But, when opinions are wrapped in the language of science (charts, numbers, statistics…) they assume a veneer of objectivity they don’t deserve. This stifles public debate.

Overselling the objectivity and confidence of social science has major real-world effects; for example, nearly every economist with a national reputation failed to anticipate the housing bubble that wrecked our economy eight years ago. As Alan Greenspan, then chair of the Fed and the nation’s most prominent economist, said at the time:

“a ‘bubble’ in home prices for the nation as a whole does not appear likely….Although we certainly cannot rule out home price declines, especially in some local markets, these declines, were they to occur, likely would not have substantial macroeconomic implications.”

Despite this enormous failure to understand and predict major events in their field*, economists like Greenspan and Ben Bernanke are still treated like authorities on the topic. They can both be found on TV regularly, engaging in policy debates, and making empirical claims about the economy that are really just educated guesses. They speak confidently and include specific numerical predictions, and their policy recommendations are treated as facts**. This distorts the debate because the opinions of others (either folks from less empirical disciplines who don’t claim specific numerical predictions, or economists who are more humble and unwilling to oversell their knowledge) are granted less authority and we end up with something like “tyranny of the hubristic”.

So, to sum up, I believe there are deep reasons, both practical and fundamental, why social sciences don’t settle questions and progressively move toward the truth, the way that natural sciences do. Consequently, I will argue they shouldn’t really be considered sciences. But my concerns about this subject aren’t just theoretical; I believe that properly understanding the nature and limitations of social science will lead to better political discussion and ultimately to better public policies.

What’s ahead in this series: I’m not exactly sure how long this series will last or how often I’ll post on this subject, but suffice it to say that I have a lot of ideas. I have already outlined several more posts on the following topics:

Measuring humans is hard and impossible: This post will discuss some of the issues involved in measuring and predicting human behavior. I’ll discuss some practical limits that make it very, very difficult collect good data about people (cost, ethics…) as well as fundamental, epistemological problems with measuring human behavior that don’t exist in other sciences. I’ll also discuss examples of where I believe social science can be done well and how meaningful ‘experiments’ can actually be conducted on humans.

Reproducibility and fraud: I’ll discuss some of the major academic fraud scandals that have recently engulfed some fields of social science, particularly social psychology. These scandals illuminate what I consider to be some of the fundamental flaws in social science methodology. I also am personally interested in scientific ethics and fraud in general, and I’ll probably broaden the discussion to include some thoughts about fraud in research about vaccines and autism. I’ll also discuss how bad research results can persist as ‘facts’ in society and how difficult it can be for good scientists to dislodge them from the public consciousness.

Can big data save social science? I’m personally very interested in the idea of ‘big data’ and how we can best learn from the enormous amounts of information that are suddenly available because of advances in information technology. I’ll discuss a bit of my own research here and talk about how ‘big data’ is currently causing a huge revolution in biology. I’ll consider how social sciences may be able to benefit from this data explosion. I’ll also discuss some of the limitations of ‘big data’ and how what we are measuring isn’t necessarily what we want to know.

Stay tuned.

* Side note: This event, the glaring failure of nearly every esteemed economist to predict the housing crash, is really what got me hot-and-bothered about economics and social sciences in the first place. It reminded me a lot of the claims that the Bush administration so famously got wrong about Iraq: “we know where the WMD’s are”, “we’ll be greeted as liberators”. Except, I expect politicians to be full of it. But I had thought that economists knew what they were talking about and had a pretty good predictive understanding on how our economy worked. After the housing crash played out, it was abundantly clear to me that economists didn’t really know what they were talking about and we shouldn’t have let Greenspan’s cockiness lull us into complacency.

** To be fair, both Bernanke and Greenspan are excellent politicians and thus have mastered the vague ‘fedspeak’ style that generally avoids specifics. They had to get something really, really wrong before it was obvious that they were full of crap. The worst examples of what I’m describing are common in the media, but usually come from lesser-known economists, trying to establish themselves as media personalities.

With two weeks to go until Election day, I’m honestly torn about how to vote on Measure 92—the initiative that would require labeling of most foods that contain GMO ingredients. I’m not going to dig into the science behind GMO safety or efficacy in this post, but I will briefly sum up my own views for background: I’m a plant scientist and a committed environmentalist. I think that GMO technology is an incredibly powerful tool that will lessen the impacts of human society on the rest of nature. I also support sensible, strong, evidence-based regulations to govern their use, and I believe that we should be appropriately cautious about widespread adoption of any new technology. Finally, I would add that I’m not a fan of the legal and business strategies used by “big ag.” and “big biotech” companies, but I think that conversations about those topics should be separate from conversations about the science and technology of GMOs.

I’ll unpack those last four sentences in future posts, but for now I want to discuss a couple thoughts I have about Measure 92 and GMO labeling in general:

1. I’m pretty sure Measure 92 is going to pass. I assume the opposition side is outspending the supporters, but this is just speculation based on spending from other states because the main opposition group “No on 92 coalition” hasn’t released donor data yet—probably because they don’t want a bunch of stories about how much “Monsanto money” is coming in from out of state. Despite the assumed financial advantage, it seems like all the public sentiment I hear (granted, I live in Portland) is strongly in favor of labeling. Polling is pretty sparse on the topic, only 2 good polls have been conducted, both by DHM research. In June (before anybody was paying attention) Measure 92 was ahead 77% to 12%, and last week it was still ahead 49% to 44%. I suppose opponents can use these numbers to cite momentum against labeling, but I will be surprised if it doesn’t pass.

2. I’m kind of ok with that. Most scientists I talk to are opposed to measure 92, but I won’t really be upset if it passes, because I see a pretty strong silver lining: Labeling GMOs will increase public awareness and acceptance of them. At least I hope so. I know that “big” food, ag. and biotech companies are worried that labeling will further stigmatize GMOs. If 92 passes, these companies will have an incentive to devote some part of their marketing budget to demystifying GMO technology and combating the ignorant fears so many folks have about eating them. I think that once we get used to seeing “contains GE ingredients” on food labels and realize how often we have already been eating them, a lot of fear will disappear. Of course, in the short-term, I’m sure the increased visibility will lead to lots of people blaming medical conditions on GMOs, but long-term I am pretty optimistic about people’s ability to get used to technology.

3. I really don’t know how I’m going to vote. I’ve spoken with a few paid canvassers, working in support of Measure 92, and when I mention that I think GMO technology has a lot of potential to improve the environment, I quickly hear, “we’re not against GMOs, we just think people should have a right to know what’s in their food.” This is clearly a rehearsed talking point of the campaign, and it’s a hard statement to disagree with.

I know, however, that if/when 92 passes it will be interpreted as a public rejection of GMO food. I don’t like that and don’t really want to contribute to it. On the other hand, philosophically, I’m pretty sympathetic to the idea that people should “have a right to know” what they are buying. I don’t avoid eating GMO foods, but if people want to do so, that’s fine with me. But really, knowing whether or not any ingredient in the food was derived from any GMO plant is pretty useless information, which brings me to my next topic.

4. The labels will be essentially meaningless. Some ingredients sourced from GMO plants, like oils and sugar are so refined and processed that no trace of GM gene or protein is present and they are chemically identical to a non-GMO alternative. Consequently, no matter what your health fears about GMOs are, there is no reason to avoid those foods. Also, a label that simply says Yes/No about GMO content is pretty useless because all GMOs aren’t the same thing. Genetic engineering is a process, and can be used to change many different things about plants. From an environmental perspective, we could, if we wanted to, make GMOs that were really damaging to nature, or we could make GMOs that actively improve the environment (I’ll write a lot more about this later).

Where human health is concerned, there is extensive data showing that GMO’s are safe, and in my opinion there is no good health reason to avoid all GMOs. But I can envision a scenario where a specific modification results in a particular chemical difference (presence of a novel protein or metabolite) that is allergenic to some people. If I were one of those people, I would want to know which particular type of modification was used on the food I’m purchasing and whether there is any residual chemical difference in the product that could provoke my allergy. But the labels mandated by measure 92 won’t contain any of that information, probably because it would be way too expensive to regulate.

A useful label would say something like “contains Bt toxin” (which btw isn’t toxic to humans or any other vertebrates, but could, in theory, be allergenic to somebody) but that label would have to go on both GMOs and organic crops—in addition to being a common GMO trait, Bt toxin is also one of the most widely used organic pesticides.

5. The public debate, on both sides, is disappointing. I get that it’s ‘politics’ and I shouldn’t expect too much. Butit would have been nice to use the public debate around this election as an opportunity for education about the potential benefits and risks of GMOs as well as the basic science behind them. We blew that opportunity. The opposition campaign has relied on images of sad farmers making extremely vague claims about how 92 will “hurt family farms”, while supporters are driving around cars with “franken-corn-fish” and trying their best to scare people with misleading claims. The only ad I kind of like is this one, from Consumer Reports which at least talks to people like adults, but unfortunately it only addresses the financial impacts of 92–it doesn’t mention the science of GMOs at all.

]]>https://jason-maxfield.com/2014/10/21/thoughts-on-measure-92-gmo-labeling-in-oregon/feed/7maxfieldjasonThis car (or one like it) has been at my grocery store regularly for the past month. Photo credit: wikimedia commons, photo by Daniel Lobo.